Firefly Club, Ann Arbor's jazz beacon, closed by the state

[Huggybear]

She collected sales tax from customers and didn't pay it to the state like she was supposed to. What's the excuse for that? Covering other bad business practices by stealing from the government?

[Gannon]

Bullshit.


She made the most simple mistake her first year in business.

She learned.



She made another mistake and allowed the sales tax estimators to fly some sales figure she couldn't argue, and she was levied with some outrageous fee that included penalties and interest that would land any banker and loan-shark in the same damn jail cell if they were caught.

She entered into that agreement and NEVER MISSED A PAYMENT.


Her past few went beyond an agreed period of REDUCED PAYMENTS due her circumstances, at least ONE well beyond her control when her landlord moved her location, which negatively affected business.


Those last two months payments were MADE, and they still shut her down.



This really is an outrage...and reveals state government for the heartless and soul-less entity it is, we only see this as clearly when they suffer from the bad economy.




Usury rate penalties and interest, brutish behavior, IDIOTIC conclusions.


Yep, that would be our government's tax departments...at EVERY level!

[ziggyselbin]

It is too bad but not surprising. Attendance was spotty at best. And really the club was more of a fraternity with the same twenty to thirty musicians playing all the time. That naturally limits the number of patrons. National acts were few and far between with little promotion.

I know Bakers has lamented their condition but if things are as they were a few years ago there is at least a significant clientèle;that was not the case frequently at the firefly.